1. 3.2. Moderne massemedier ---------------------------- Forelesning v/ Øyvind Kalnes Høgskolen i Lillehammer, 23. September 2011
2. Medienes globale rekkevidde Tempo og avstand Langsomt og lokalt Global sanntid Innhold Skrift Multimedialt Interaktivitet Unilateral Multilateral Kostnad og ekslusivitet Dyrt og eksklusivt Billig og lett tilgjengelig
A pertinent question to ask in how on earth were Arnestad able to get permission from LTTE-leader to make the film? In the interviews follwoing the film Arnestad refuses to answer this question. This is to some extent legitimate if she is silent in order to protect the people who helped her from being punished by the Sinhalese army. But the answer to this question is probably more complicated that. And this opens up a space for speculations: Arnestad was in what I would call a reltively powerful position during her stay in Sri Lanka. She had with diplomatic connections who might have opened some doors. How we donn’t know. Arnestad was in Sri Lanka with her husband, who was employed by the Norwegian embassy in Sri Lanka as First Secretary responsible for Development. Norway has a long history with Sri Lanka as an aid donor. During Arnestads stay in Sri Lanka, Norway also operated as a facilitator for peace negotiations between the Tamil Tigers and the Government. It is not unreasonalbe to believe that the Norwegian Embassy and the Norwegian peace negotiators were in contact with each other. This suggestes as I already have said that Arnestad was well connected. An as I will reveal in a minute the presence of Norwegian officials in Sri Lanka, and Arnestad’s relationship to them, influenced influenced how the film was received in Sri Lanka. This however, does not say much about how she got LTTE’s permission film the two female soldiers. Or in other words what were the carrots that she gave to LTTE? The LTTE even arranged an audition for her. She could choose her informats from a group of approximately 20 youn women. Arnestad has also claimed that the organization did not censor the film, and let her operate freely during the filmmaking process. The picture to the left is showing the Norwegian special peace envoy, Erik Solheim together with the Sri Lanklan government. But as the next slide will revela the happy times between the Norwegian peace negotiators and the Government on Sri Lanka were soon over.
The Norwegian peace negotiations were in other words not very successful. A fragile cease fire was esablished in 2002, but this broken by the government in 2008. The Norwegian authorities after a while were accused of of supporting the LTTE. The Sinhalese critized Norway for giving LTTE a too equal position versus the goverment, and for being too soft onthe obvious breaches of human rights in the areas controlled by the LTTE. As already suggested,this, the idea that Norwegians were supporters of the LTTE, establilshed a context for possible readings of the film in Sri Lanka. An importan point in this connection, is that Norway has never made it illegal to support the LTTE unlike many western countries.
